its not the number of books her children read that is the issue, its that the school required that they track the number of pages.
if a fouth grader comes in and lists The Cat in the Hat as one of the book they have read, well, that is not appropriate reading for a kid who should be reading on a 4th grade level.
but to judge books by the pages.. UGH! what a habit to encourage! the teachers should be reasonable familiar with most of the books 4th graders are reading. they should know the titles, authors and age/reading level appropriateness. tracking the number of pages is stupid.
as a child, i had a huge book of hans christian anderson fairy tales. the kind of book that is normal read to children. (but, alas, i was never read to as a child)
i read these fairytales to myself. and i started doing so in 3rd grade or so--and i started with the shortest stories.
as i got older and older, i continued reading these fairytales, until in about 8th grade, i finally took on the tale of Ice Queen--a story about 30 pages long--but each page was about 8X 12! and the text was printed in two columns.
i recognize now, my behavior was childish--but i was a child, doing thing in a childish way. to teach a child to chose a book (or perhaps avoid a book) simple based on the number of pages? that is bad.
